Praying With Power

I have always known that the Lord Jesus prayed. Recently I have been meditating from the Gospel of Luke. It is then that I was taken aback by the prayer life of the Lord Jesus. His whole life was taken up by prayer. He lived in the Father’s presence. His life was spent in prayer. He occasionally came away from praying to carry out some task that was assigned to Him by the Father, and went back to prayer as soon as the task was completed.I have been deeply moved by the quality and quantity of the Lord’s prayers. He just prayed. It is obvious from the way He prayed that He understood that everything depended on prayer.I am convinced that the Lord Jesus understood the true value of prayer. That value was reflected by how much He prayed. I am also now more aware that through a special activity of the Enemy, the Church has been blinded from seeing prayer as the Father sees it and seeing prayer as the Son saw it. This blindness seems total in some quarters and is certainly partial in all others.As a people of God in the city of Yaounde, our eyes are beginning to be opened to the importance of prayer. This has resulted in individual prayer crusades – prayer crusades of two, four, six people and prayer crusades of the House Churches. This has also resulted in the seven prayer chains that are scattered in this city where people are keeping prayer vigils round the clock – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.We believe that this is only the beginning. Our eyes are only partially open because there is yet only limited burden that leads to heart-rending before God and heaven-storming in prayer. We plead with the Lord that He should open our eyes so that we might see more clearly the critical importance of prayer. We also pray that He should open our eyes to how late the hour is. We pray that He should teach us and enable us to pour out our all in prayer, to convert sleeping time into prayer time; to convert every available minute into prayer time. We pray also that He should enable us to handle the practical aspects of prayer to the best advantage; for a well-equipped but poorly organized army might yet suffer serious loss.There are other things that ought to have been included in this book. We have thought it best to leave some of them for the subsequent books that, by God’s grace, will follow.The substance of these messages was first given to leaders of House Churches in the city of Yaounde and around. At the time of delivery it was not intended that these messages would become a book, but the Lord has willed it to be so. As a companion volume to this book is the next book in this series, The Phenomenon of Prayer. Both series of messages were given at the same time. We would have liked to make both into one book, but there was a problem of size. If you have read this message and been blessed, you will want to read the next book in the series. You will also find that you need the material in the first four books to come to grips with the themes of prayer, fasting and intercession.A book on prayer is not a novel. It cannot be read with ease or in one go. It has to be taken in small bites. I suggest that you should first read the book quickly through and then come back for a slower reading in which you take a bite at a time. I have established the habit of having a good book on prayer on the table or near the bed. I always carry one with me. As I read small portions from books like those by E.M. Bounds, I am stirred to pray. You too might find the habit beneficial. You may find that one of the books or some of the books in this series are a blessing to you.The Lord was in the Ministry of Praying. He also taught His disciples how to pray. You and I should go and do likewise and we shall indeed be blessed and, above all, the Lord’s name shall be glorified.